Russia Wants To Break Off From the ISS in 2024

Its part of the station will detach, forming a new space outpost.

Within a decade, Russia might take its ball and go home. The country says it wants to leave the International Space Station by 2024 and turn its ISS modules into a new, Russia-only space station.

Yuri Koptev, the head of manned spaceflight at Roscosmos, said in a statement released to the media that the country wanted to "secure access to space for Russia." Though the station has been functioning (mostly) normally despite sanctions from the United States over the situation in Ukraine, international relations have dimmed prospects of the station's future.

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According to Roscosmos, the all-Russian space station (the neo-Mir, if you will) is a stepping stone toward the country's ultimate goal of a manned Lunar landing in 2030. Beyond 2024, the future of the ISS is unclear anyway, with no country signaling intent to continue operations through that date. By around 2028, the hardware will be too obsolete to continue functioning, according to Space News.

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Russia has threatened to leave ISS before, and frosty relations with the West over the Crimean crisis certainly aren't making the country want to stay. However, a European official also told Space News that Russia probably can't quit the space station earlier than 2024—because of falling oil prices and western sanctions against the country, it needs the money it's making from the ISS, especially from charging the United States to fly our astronauts.